Thursday, January 17, 2019

I have so many routines and procedures in my first grade classroom, so when fun holidays like Valentine's Day roll around I love to break out of our normal routine and mix in some fun and cute work stations!

Getting Ready:

To prep this math activity, I just printed out the free download on my home printer (it's an HP that I connected to Instant Ink and it's a LIFE SAVER!) Seriously, I want to buy a second one for my classroom so I don't have to walk down to the copier!!!

I also laminated the pieces. I do this for almost everything because I teach first grade (Kinder teachers you KNOW) and because the Scotch brand pouches I use are much thicker than my school's giant shared laminator.

I always just laminate the full sized sheets first and then cut out the pieces.

I used to be a CUT, laminate, CUT AGAIN kinda lady (very type A), but once I bought my own personal laminator I've never gone back!

The Activity:

Once I had everything prepped, I gathered my first graders on our classroom carpet to show them the new math center I had made for them. I popped the penguin cards under our Hovercam and showed the students that the two "parts" were given to them and they would just have to place the heart of the "whole" on the tummy of each penguin.

I also set out some mini erasers for my few low-babies who would need manipulative counters to double check their work. It's SO important to always tie it back to more concrete objects for those kids who need it!

The "NEW" factor coupled with the fact that I have like 6 students who want to play "school" 24/7 meant that this activity was a HIT!

I hope it works for you as much as it did for me and feel free to comment if you have any questions or ideas to share! Plus, you can check out these other fun penguin activities for kids (linked below) and snag yourself another freebie from one of my friends!

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Routines and procedures are GOLD in my classroom. My kids know what to expect, I know how to plan, and things just run smoother in general! For the most part, my math block looks like this each day:

Student-Led Math Calendar on the SMART board (5 min.)

Teacher-Led Math Warm-Up Questions (5 min.)

Teacher-Led Math Mini-Lesson focused on the Objective of the Day/Week (15 min.)

Partner Game or Activity! (10 min.)

Independent Practice Sheet (15 min.)

Math Notebook Cut-And-Paste and/or Math Center (15 min.)

Math Free-Choice ---> Students can read books about math, write problems on a whiteboard, or they can do an online math program that tracks their progress (Any extra time left)

The math partner games have been SO helpful for me to see how much my students understand after my mini-lesson, but since we partner up almost every day, I needed a new way to pair students.

Instead of making them go with the person next to them everyday or let them pick (and take forever) to find their own partners, I decided to make these Buggy Partner Cards!

I simply pass them out randomly and have students silently find the person who has the matching card. This mixes students up from their "regular" partners, but still has a math-related purpose.

Most students will likely just count or read the number on the card, but you could also point out that when there are just a few dots on a card, math smarties can just look at it and "see" the number!

If you don't have a huge class that you need to quickly get partnered up, these Buggy Cards could also be used for a quick review of number words. Students would need to match the bugs with the correct number word!

Another idea for these free cards would be to play the game of memory with them!

Flip them all face-down and let students take turns flipping two over at a time to try and find the matches. This would be a fun game for small-group tutoring or even in a homeschool setting.

Lastly, I always encourage teachers to laminate things like this! In my first-grade classroom, I'm pretty much doomed if I don't laminate something. You can also print them on cardstock if you are serious about trying to keep things nice from year to year... :)

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Happy teaching and don't forget to check out the other bug activities below!

My students easily understood that they were to spread out the pieces and find the matches. I reiterated that once they matched up all the hearts, they needed to say all of the words out loud to "stick them in their brains".

When all my kiddos had a chance to try out the center, I gave them all a few candy heart treats just for fun!

Friday, December 22, 2017

Almost every day, my first grade students have a writing "job". We might be starting a week-long writing project, responding to prompts, adding a new entry into our independent journals, or we could be doing some sort of writing craft! I like to mix it up, but regardless, my students are writing every day and they LOVE it!

One of the reasons my students love to write each day is because once they finish the "job" that has been assigned for that day, they get to "FREE WRITE".

Basically, I have a table with all sorts of blank writing templates on it and they can choose anything they want to do as long as they are writing!

I was lucky enough to have a retired teacher donate a huge bag of postcards to my classroom earlier this year, but when I noticed we were running low, I whipped up some of my own!

They aren't anything fancy, but my kiddos love to write a short message and then draw pictures on the back! Some of my students just write postcards to their friends and family, but I also try to encourage my students to get creative and think about what they would say if they traveled somewhere different!

Having a variety of writing formats keeps things fresh, and I sure do love getting postcards "mailed" to my desk. :)

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